


The Way Things Are

by SeaWitch



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Swearing, mentions of past violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 06:09:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9308747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeaWitch/pseuds/SeaWitch
Summary: You know the way things should be.[In answer to snarkyroxy's Verse Two, Line One challenge ... lyrics follow at the end of the story.]





	

If there’s been one constant in your life since you found out about the world of magic, it has been that Draco Malfoy is an infuriating, arrogant, devious prat. You know it, just like you know how to fly. It is instinctive, it is natural; that is the way things are. It keeps you sane. Other people change, Hermione is beautiful now, clever, poised and confident. Ron is strong, a strategist, able to carry more on his broad shoulders than you ever thought he could. Neville is a fierce fighter, though he wears his gentle diffidence like an invisibility cloak, concealing the lion within. But Draco is still just Draco.   
  
Ever the Slytherin, he changed sides in the war because he thought the Order was winning and that he would prefer life outside of Azkaban. Your first encounter with him after he turned his back on his family and Voldemort left you both bloodied and shaken. Your ferocity – the legacy of Dumbledore’s death – surprised you both. An uneasy truce, since he brought you vital information on the Horcruxes, has held since that day.  
  
Two months pass by and it's getting cold; Draco is no longer the prat of memory. He flits around the safe-house like a ghost, pale and silent. He barely speaks to anyone but you, and even then it is only to get orders that he takes without question. It is not right. And it is doing your head in. No one else cares that Draco is not himself, and you’re not even sure why  _you_  care. You tell yourself that it is because Draco being quiet and civil is against the natural order of things, convince yourself that is the  _only_  reason why you watch him, hoping for a glimmer of life in those dead silver eyes.  
  
But tension is building inside steadily, and it comes to a head on the coldest day of the year. Ron and Hermione broke up two weeks ago, and you have been walking on eggshells with them ever since. You spoke to Hermione about it, since Ron refuses to talk and instead stalks around with a thunderous expression on his face.  
  
“Oh, Harry,” she said, giving you a sad smile that made her look far older than her eighteen years. “Ron and I could never have lasted long. I love him, and I always will, but there’s … something … missing.”  
  
“Missing?” you asked, with an uneasy sense of familiarity running through your mind at her words.   
  
“We’re best friends, and he knows everything about me; he even  _understands_  me to an extent, but …” she sighed, resting her head against the cold glass of the windowpane. “There’s no challenge there. No growing, no intellectual stimulation. No … spark.”  
  
And you know, suddenly, what was missing with Ginny. Yes, she understood you. Yes, you loved her. But there was something indefinable missing. A spark. Something more.  
  
“So your ideal match would be a Slytherin, then?” you joked, thinking of the most unlikely, and challenging, match you could imagine, and a blush stained her cheeks a vivid rose.  
  
“Perhaps,” she answered, with a longing on her face that you didn’t want to decipher.   
  
Ron did not accept her reasons for ending the relationship and you’ve watched him scrutinising every male member of the Order that passes through the doors of the safe-house, trying to determine which one has stolen Hermione from him. You’ve tried to dissuade him, make him understand that Hermione has no one else, but as usual, Ron will not listen. Once he has an idea in his head, he will not let it go.  
  
So, when Hermione leaves the kitchen after a quiet discussion with Draco, you are not surprised when Ron explodes in rage and throws a mug at him, shouting that he should keep his filthy, treacherous hands off of her. You stay in your corner, watching for any reaction from the blonde. Any sign of the old Draco. A flicker of … something … in the silver eyes to show that he is still there.  
  
Draco eases out of his chair and advances toward Ron with a suggestive sway to his hips and a calculating look in his eyes. He reaches out a slender hand and caresses Ron’s cheek.  
  
“I’m afraid you’re far more my type than Granger is, Weasley,” he says in a low, seductive tone as he presses up against a rapidly reddening Ron. “Pure-blooded, such a strapping representative of wizarding masculinity and all.”  
  
“Gerroff me, Malfoy.” Ron shudders and forcibly pushes the slighter man away, while you restrain your desire to laugh.   
  
Draco chuckles wickedly and sashays from the room, casting a last look over his shoulder, meeting your gaze. For a moment, his eyes are alive, caught up in the malicious tormenting of his old enemy, and he is  _Draco_  again. Your breath catches in your throat; you don’t want to think why. But then the light fades, and Draco is cold again, and gone from the kitchen.  
  
You sit silently while Ron blathers on about Draco touching him and being a pervert until you can take no more. You get up and leave the room, ignoring Ron’s questions. The real Draco Malfoy is still there; the question is, what will it take to bring him out into the open? Without realising it, you are at the door of the room that Draco has made his own, and you walk in without knocking.   
  
He is standing at the window, looking out into the snow-covered garden. He looks as fragile and as pale as an ice sculpture, with his white-blonde hair, pale skin and silver eyes, and as likely to shatter, too.  
  
You slam the door behind you, taking an odd kind of pleasure in the fact that he starts and looks sharply around.   
  
“Can I help you, Potter?” he asks civilly, politely, as though you had not just barged into his room without permission.  
  
“I hate you and your apathy,” you snarl, crossing the room to take him by the shoulders and emphasise the words with a none-too-gentle grip. “I hate that you slink around here like some kind of shadow. I hate that you’re polite. I hate that you smile and nod and don’t give your bloody opinion when you’re asked.” You are aware that your voice is rising to a shout as you stare into startled silver eyes, and that your grip is so hard as to be bruising him.   
  
“What the fuck are you going on about, Potter?” His pointed face is flushed and his hands cling to your wrists, though he can’t push your hands from his shoulders. His eyes begin to flash angrily as he tries to put some distance between you.  
  
“I hate that you hide behind that fucking cold mask. I hate that you take my orders without question and play the good little soldier for the Light.” You pause, breathless, unsure of what to say next, but this is working, it is  _working_  and you can see the transformation on his face. You feel like crowing in triumph.   
  
“Isn’t that what you wanted?” he sneers back. “For me to get along with the rag-tag band that follows you to their bloody deaths? To be a good little boy and play nicely with the others?”  
  
“I hate that you aren’t  _Draco Malfoy_ , pain in my arse, any more!” You practically howl the words into his face, aware suddenly, shockingly, painfully, why it is that you hate what he has become. The realisation must show on your face, because he looks back at you, angry, confused and oddly hopeful, all at once. “I need you to be  _Draco_ , not this pale bloody imitation,” you grind out past the lump in your throat and the unexpected sting of tears that you blink away, though not before he sees them.   
  
“This morning I woke up alone,” Draco says, releasing your wrists. “This morning I woke up alone. Tomorrow I’ll wake up alone. I’m always going to be fucking alone. I gave up  _everything_  to stay alive.”  
  
“So where’s the problem,” you can ask, ignoring the pounding of your heart, “if you keep your head up?”  
  
“I can’t be  _Draco Malfoy_  around your lot, they’d tear me apart,” he says forcefully. “And you … you beat the living daylights out of me when I got here.”  
  
“That’s different,” you mumble gruffly, still chilled by the remembered image of him broken and bloody on the floor, your bruised fists clenched in the front of his robes.  
  
“Right,” he says sardonically. “And what were you going to do to me today?” Draco shrugs under your hands, and you drop them as though the bony shoulders are scalding you.  
  
“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” you say, taking a step backwards. “I swear I wasn’t.”  
  
Draco looks at you with a measuring, knowing gaze. “You were going to do whatever it took to bring out the  _real_  me, weren’t you?”  
  
You nod, somewhat unwillingly. “It worked, didn’t it?”  
  
“Another way would have worked equally well.” There is something in his expression that makes your mouth go dry and your heart redouble its frantic hammering in your chest.   
  
He closes the distance between you, studying your face intently the whole time. Slowly, so very slowly, a hand comes up to cup your cheek, fingers cool against your suddenly overheated skin. He leans in, eyes falling closed as his lips brush yours. You can’t breathe, and start to tremble as he draws back and smiles, and then leans back in again. This time, his kiss is deeper, slow and languid, and you give yourself over to it. It feels  _right_  in a way no other kiss ever has, and your arms twine around his waist, bringing your bodies into alignment.  
  
“See,” he says breathlessly, pale skin flushed and warm, lips soft and inviting. “This would have worked too.”  
  
You just nod, unable to speak. He laughs, and then you lose yourself in his kisses again.  
  
Hours later, you wake to find him looking down at you, that old smug grin on his face, no less galling for all that he is as naked as the day he was born. A flicker of emotion that you don’t want to express out loud – not yet, anyway – clutches at your heart, and you glare at him, not really meaning it.  
  
“What do you want,  _Malfoy_?”  
  
“Just thinking what a shock it would be for the wizarding world to know that their hero is a pillow biter.” The words are said with much of his old maliciousness, but the soft warmth in his eyes belies it.  
  
“I’m sure they’d be just as shocked to find out that a pure-blood like you was screwing a half-blood, as  _well_  as being an arse-bandit,” you say with no real heat, running your hand over his side. “You going to be yourself again?”  
  
“If that’s what you want,” he says diffidently, his head dropping down onto the pillow beside yours. He runs his fingers through your no doubt messy hair, eyes serious but no longer cold.  
  
“You do my head in when you’re not being you,” you say, aware you are blushing as his smug grin appears again. That shy tone was an obvious put on. “Oh, fuck you, Draco.”  
  
“Fuck you too, Harry.” His lip curls, and he laughs that familiar wicked laugh as you roll over, pinning him to the bed as you kiss his neck.  
  
For now, all is right in your world.

**Author's Note:**

> And here are the lyrics provided by snarkyroxy as part of the challenge:
> 
> "So where's the problem, you can ask, if you keep your head up?" – Buy Now Pay Later (Charlie No. 2) – The Whitlams
> 
> "Tension is building inside steadily" – From the Inside – Linkin Park
> 
> "I hate you and your apathy" – Israel's Son – Silverchair
> 
> "Two months pass by and it's getting cold" – Exodus – Evanescence
> 
> "This morning I woke up alone" – Let Her Cry – Hootie and the Blowfish
> 
> Thanks to snarkyroxy for being the beta, and others who have commented on snippets.
> 
> First uploaded to OWL these long ages past, where I wrote under the name indigofeathers - so don't worry, not stealing another author's words, just playing in JKR's backyard and putting her characters through the wringer.


End file.
